


Quintessential

by always_a_slut_for_hc



Series: Necessary Series [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:37:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9581234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/always_a_slut_for_hc/pseuds/always_a_slut_for_hc
Summary: Lance tries to recover. Keith is hiding something big. When it all goes south, will Voltron still stand?





	1. Chapter 1

He’s on a beach.

The sun beats down on his back as Lance stands knee-deep in water, light playing off the waves and flashing into his eyes. Waves come in, and go out. Advance, recede. Advance, recede. The rhythm pulls at his legs, tugging gently until he takes a step forward, and another. The sand gives way under his feet as he walks deeper into the sea. He’s always loved the sea: constant, yet constantly changing. The sharp scent, the vivid colors, the shock when he’d first jump into the water...he always felt the most _alive_ at the ocean.

There’s a hand in his, as constant and steady as the push and pull of the waves. The man beside him is vibrant in the sun, almost too bright to look at, like the light off the water. Lance smiles and Keith smiles back. They walk together, ceding to the tug of the water as it leads them forward, insistent. Lance walks, until the water comes to his thighs, then his waist, then his chest, Keith’s hand still in his. He squeezes, and Keith squeezes back, his eyes impossibly large and fond.

 _Eyes you could drown in,_ thinks Lance, and leans in close, Keith’s hair brushing his face. The water churns around them and _pulls,_ stronger now, and he’s torn away, his fingers slipping from Keith’s. There’s a look of horror on Keith’s face as he reaches for Lance, and then he’s sucked under, into roiling darkness.

 _Riptide._ Lance knows them, knows how to get out of them. They were common on Verradera Beach, his old lifeguard grounds, and he’d been caught in more than a few. Underwater, he flails for a second, then starts off with a strong stroke, parallel to the shore. But the more he tries to swim, the deeper he sinks. Down, down, inexorably down, and no amount of struggling and kicking helps. There’s only blackness, deep and dark and cold. It crushes in on Lance, takes his breath away. He screams for help, but there’s no answer from the sea. He continues to sink, for what feels like hours, alone in the dark.

Until he touches down, feels cold hard floor under his feet, but still no light. He tries to move forward, but freezes at the familiar clink of a chain and pressure on his ankles. _Ball and chain,_ he thinks, _No wonder I sank so fast._

There’s a pinprick of light, off in the distance, but coming closer. Lance waits as it approaches, steadily growing stronger, until he’s bathed in glowing purple light. A dark figure solidifies at the center of the light, and steps forward.

Vint towers over him, that same appraising, predatory look in his eyes. Lance is frozen to the spot in fear, his mind terrifyingly blank. Vint smiles with all his teeth, and pain spikes through Lance, searing his back and shoulders. He feels warm wetness running down his body; his whiplashes are open again, and blood pours from the wounds. He sways, gasping at the familiar pain. _This can’t be happening. How is this happening?_

 _Boy._ Vint’s voice is calm, but thrums with confidence and power. _You know that you are mine._ There’s an answering thrum of agreement from somewhere in Lance’s mind, and he viciously pushes it back. Clawed hands reach out towards Lance’s face, and he flinches backwards, losing footing on the slick floor. His legs tangle in the manacles, sending him crashing to the ground. Shaking, he pushes himself up to his knees, and looks down at his hands, slick and red with blood. 

“Lance!”

Vint’s shadow falls over him. A sharp claw slides under his jaw, pushing his chin up, and Lance reluctantly drags his gaze up to the Galra’s satisfied face. _Welcome home,_ Vint tells him, and slashes his claws down over Lance’s left eye.

“C’mon, wake up!”

His eye is agony. Pure pain radiates through his body, and someone’s screaming, a hoarse, broken sound. 

“Lance! WAKE UP!”

He opens his eyes and the screaming stops.

_Oh._

Lance blinked, the familiar walls of his room settling around him. He was on his bed, his fists clenched in the sheets. Keith’s face hovered above him, tight with worry.

“Lance?” Keith questioned, his voice strained.

It was a dream, just a dream. Lance let out a shaky sigh and pulled Keith down, buried his face into Keith’s neck, and tried to calm his panicked breathing. _“Keith.”_

Keith’s arms came up around Lance and held tight, and they both laid there for a while, until Lance stopped shaking. 

“M’ sorry.” Lance’s voice broke the silence, muffled into Keith’s neck. Keith sighed and rolled off Lance to the side, bringing them face to face on the bed. Keith’s sharp features were illuminated with a soft glow. A Galra yellow glow. Lance clenched his eyes shut.

“Lance, you don't have anything to apologize for. Not a _damn_ thing, okay? It was just a dream.”

“I know. I know. I just - I wish I could just forget it. Not ever dream about it. Erase the show from the TiVo, delete the track from the playlist, like that one Altaen song Coran keeps playing at morning training, dear quiznak I hate that song-”

“Lance-” Keith interrupted, with a hint of a laugh, “Babe, come on, look at me.”

Reluctantly, Lance opened his eyes, lighting Keith’s face with yellow again. “It’s okay,” Keith repeated with a fond expression. “You’re still working through everything, and it’s a lot. Don’t apologize.”

“But I keep waking you up, I don’t want...” Lance trailed off, still feeling guilty. “I don’t want you to have to deal with this.” 

Keith curled a hand behind Lance’s neck and brought them together, forehead to forehead. “And I don’t want you to have to deal with it either. Trust me, Lance,” he whispered, “There’s nowhere else I want to be.”

Warmth spread through Lance’s chest, dispelling the last of the nightmare’s chill, and he pushed forward to cover Keith’s lips with his. _Nowhere else I want to be._

 

 

The alarm went off a few hours later, jerking them both awake. “That’s not the normal alarm, right?” Keith asked, his arms still wrapped protectively around Lance.

“PALADINS! WAKE UP! THERE’S AN EMERGENCY! MEET ON THE BRIDGE IMMEDIATELY!” Allura’s voice came through the speaker at an earsplitting pitch. Before she’d even finished the sentence, Keith and Lance were in their armor and out the door.

All five paladins arrived at the bridge at roughly the same time, sharing looks of confusion and fear. Allura glanced over from her place at the controls.

“I’m afraid Zarkon has found us again,” she pronounced gravely. Keith’s stomach dropped. _No._

The bridge immediately erupted in a chorus of humans yelling. “How is that even possible?” Hunk demanded. “We wormholed away, like, a billion lightyears yesterday. There’s no way he should have been able to catch us!”

“Agreed.” said Allura. “But nonetheless, he is here.” Her words were underscored by Zarkon’s kingship in the viewscreens, slowly but surely approaching the castle.

“Well, let’s wormhole away again!” Coran pulled out a pocket calculator. “Perhaps if we go _two_ billion lightyears away, he’ll take twice as long to catch up!”

With an inclination of her head, Allura began the wormhole process, and guided the ship through.

Shiro stepped forward, his voice grave. “So you think he will catch up again.”

“I don’t know how he’s managing it, but yes,” said Coran helplessly. “He shouldn’t be able to track us, but somehow, he has done it.”

At this, Keith went white, and he dropped his gaze to his feet. _It’s me...it has to be_. He’d had his suspicions for a while, that he was... _Galra_. His knife, passed to his from his parents; the purple tone of his skin when he’d been splashed with that quintessence stuff; how he could use the Galra hand scanners; those weirdly pointed comments from Zarkon...it all added up, but he hadn’t told anyone. 

He hadn’t even told _Lance_ his suspicions, because saying it would make it a real possibility, and he just couldn’t handle that as a reality. His mind had conjured the worst possible scenarios: they’d kick him off Voltron, Lance would leave him, Shiro’d never speak to him again...He couldn’t take that chance. But now his secret had endangered them all. Steeling himself, Keith opened his mouth, to tell them all the truth-

“It’s me.” Lance said firmly. “Has to be. They probably implanted something in me-”

“No way, Lance.” Pidge interrupted, shaking their head. “Allura and I combed over your medical file, it didn’t mention anything like that.”

“What else could it be?” Lance said wildly, and Keith stepped closer, bumping their shoulders.

“It could be me,” he said in a rush, and forced himself to stand straight when everyone’s gaze swiveled around to him. “I uh, I-” Lance was looking at him with concern. Lance who’d been tortured by the Galra, Lance who hated the Galra with every fiber of his being. Lance, _his boyfriend_ , looking at him with mismatched eyes: one blue, one a blank yellow lens.

Keith’s courage failed.

“When I fought Zarkon, he could have, uh, imprinted on me,” he mumbled and looked away, in secret shame. _Some red paladin I am._

“It could be me too,” Shiro said. “He has a strong connection with the black lion. Not sure how far that connection can reach, but it could be that.”

Finished with the wormhole jump, Allura stepped down to join them. “These are all viable possibilities. If he finds us again, we must take steps to discover who he is tracking and how. It could very well be me: Zarkon first discovered us on Arus when I awakened.”

“In any case, we should plan out a way to isolate the variables, so we can-” Pidge broke off at a buzz from their console. Racing over, they tapped in a few commands, and turned back to the group.

“Huh. We’ve received a message from from a nearby planet. It’s pretty encoded, but my translator programs had no problem with it (really, the field of cryptography owes so much to Turing, he was such a pioneer that his theorems still apply today-)”

“Pidge. Why do they require Voltron’s assistance?” Allura cut in.

“Well that’s the thing. They don’t,” said Pidge. “They’re offering _us_ help.”


	2. Chapter 2

The entire way down to the planet’s surface, Keith flew Red in formation with the others on autopilot. His mind couldn’t focus on the usual joy of flying, the excitement of possibly finding other resistors to Zarkon’s rule: he could only think about the lies he’d been telling everyone. Lies by omission, okay, but still lies. He’d lied to his boyfriend, and his best friend, and his...his family. But he didn’t know for _sure_ that he was Galra, right? It was better to not get ahead of himself, and push Lance away in the process. Patience yields focus. He’d been right to stay quiet.

Even still, there was an uneasy feeling of guilt settling in his stomach and crawling up his throat. Keith hadn’t even told Lance of his suspicions, of the time when the golden quintessence had burned him, turning his skin just the slightest shade of purple. Or what Zarkon had said, when they’d fought.

_You fight like a Galra soldier._

Keith didn’t fight like a Galra, he just _fought_ , period. It’s all he’d ever done, before...before Lance. Lance just brought out a softer side of Keith, in a way only Shiro had ever managed before. But it was different with Lance. It was like he smoothed out Keith’s edges, lightened his darkness, brought Keith’s fire down to a warm glow. 

Keith would do anything not to lose that. _Anything._

“Keith, you there?” Shiro’s voice crackled over the comms. “We’re landing.”

“Oh, right!” Keith said. Red was drifting far out of formation. He pushed thoughts of purple skin and yellow eyes out of his head, and brought Red down for a landing.

 

 

 

 

The planet’s surface kind of reminded Keith of those old western movies, with cowboys and horses and two-bit towns. They stood on a stark desert of rusty red sand, stretching for miles around, dotted with massive prism-like formations of what looked like solid glass, in purple and red and orange, under a blazing pink sky. Keith sidled up next to Lance and took his hand, squeezing.

“Look at this, Keith! Look at that sky!” Lance gushed, turning his mega-watt smile on just for Keith. _For me,_ Keith marveled, and grinned back.

“Paladins!” Allura announced, marching out of the black lion with Shiro on her heels. “The message direct us to wait at these coordinates for the resistance’s envoy. In the meantime, I would like to - _gently suggest_ \- that we be on our best diplomatic behavior here. Forming alliances with other resistance factions would be a huge step in defeating Zarkon!”

“Don’t worry, Allura, we will be,” Shiro said warmly, and the paladins nodded. Some of the tension eased off Allura’s face. 

“I have no doubt-”

“Wait, what is that?” Pidge interrupted, pointing at a dust cloud or red sand, rapidly approaching.

“The envoy,” said Allura, and stepped forward, her head held regally high.

The dust cloud came closer, enveloping the team in a swirling cloud of fine red dust, obscuring any sight. Keith held on to Lance’s hand, until the dust settled and they could see the aliens, standing in a V-formation before them.

They reminded Keith of the centaur legends back on earth, if centaurs were also somehow giant lizards. They had strange, slitted eyes in vaguely humanoid heads, an extra set of double-jointed arms, and were covered in reddish-brown scales, like the ever-present sand.

“Princess Allura? I am Axar, of the Tona’ch. We welcome you to our planet,” said the leader, giving Allura a sweeping bow. She responded in kind, and introduced the paladins.

“Ah, the paladins of Voltron. We have heard of your mighty deeds against Zarkon,” said Axar, inclining his head.

“We do what we can,” said Shiro. “But we can’t do it alone.”

“And that is why we contacted you. We would like to form an alliance, share information and technology in this fight against Zarkon. Our planet has been able to fend off the Galra forces for the time being, but eventually they will overcome us. Taking down the emperor is the only way to ensure peace.”

“Agreed. But perhaps we should not speak of this so exposed?” suggested Allura. Axar nodded again. 

“Yes, of course. We shall proceed to our base.” He paused delicately. “Unfortunately, the black and blue paladins cannot be permitted entry.”

Keith shared a confused look with Lance.

“What? Why ever not?” said Allura, clearly baffled herself. Shiro, at her right shoulder, had tensed up, head down. He never used to stand like that, Keith thought, before...before he’d been taken.

“My people are fighting the Galra, and yet two of your number have Galra modifications. We will not permit the Galra taint within our sanctuary.”

Allura, for once, was struck speechless, staring dumbly at the Tona’ch with her jaw hanging open. If it wasn’t for the absolute shock, Keith would’ve laughed. As it was, he just gripped Lance’s hand harder and snuck a glance at his boyfriend. Lance’s face showed pure confusion, the same confusion Keith felt.

Allura shook her head sharply. “Surely I must have misheard, exactly what are you saying, Axar?” she said, as diplomatically as ever.

“These two,” Axar motioned at Shiro and Lance, “bear Galra technology. Even as paladins of Voltron, my people will not accept their presence within the sanctuary. We are willing to be allies, but these ones must wait here. I’m sure you understand.” 

“No, we _don’t_ understand! What the hell!” spat Keith. Hunk, next to him, nodded furiously. Lance’s jaw was clenched tight, and he stared down at the red sand. The envoy spread his hands placatingly.

“Please understand, I respect these ones as paladins of Voltron. Were it my decision, there would be no issue of entrance. But the rules of my people are firm. These Galra-modified ones must stay behind.”   
Lance lunged forward, pulling his hand from Keith’s. “We weren’t _modified_ willingly,” Lance spat, his face red and furious. Shiro said nothing, only looked down at the sand, radiating a sense of anger tinged with shame.

“Nevertheless, you are now part Galra. And thus unable to enter the sanctuary.”

“These are paladins of Voltron! They are a valued part of the team. Without them, there is no Voltron! This disrespect cannot stand.” Allura’s voice rang with righteous fury as she stared up at the envoy, Lance raging at her side.

“No, Allura,” Shiro finally spoke, although he kept his gaze downcast. “It’s important that we link up with any other resistance fighters. Lance and I will just test that tracking theory while the rest of you make this alliance.”

Allura turned to Shiro, and he met her eyes, finally. “Shiro..” she whispered. He shook his head. Allura’s shoulders sagged, just for a second, until she pulled herself up and turned back to Axar.

Lance beat her to it, getting up in the Tona’ch’s face as much as possible, given the alien was at least ten feet tall. “The Galra did this to me,” he hissed, pointing at his Galra eye, blazing almost white. “You think I don’t hate them more than _anything?_ ”

Keith flinched. Of course Lance hated the Galra, he had every reason to. But this settled it: if Keith shared his doubts, if he let Lance know of his suspicions, Lance would leave him. No question.

He and Hunk each grabbed one of Lance’s arms, pulling him away from the spooked envoy. Lance struggled in their grip. “C’mon, Lance,” Keith pleaded, and Lance went almost boneless in his grip, allowing Keith and Hunk to drag him away. Once Lance was far enough away, Axar relaxed, and turned back to Allura. 

Sparing Lance a sympathetic glance, she announced, “Very well. We shall accompany you to your base, sans our valued paladins.” Axar nodded, turned to his company, and began to speak in a guttural hiss, translating the conversation for his soldiers.

Allura turned to Shiro and Lance, her luminous eyes brimming with sorrow. “I...I apologize, paladins, but it seems we have no choice.”

“It’s fine, princess,” Shiro said reassuringly, but no one was fooled. Everyone could see his fists clenched at his sides, could feel the rage emanating in waves from the usually calm blue paladin. “Like I said, we’ll just test out that tracking theory in the meantime.”

“Well...be careful. Zarkon is dangerous. Make sure you can escape,” Allura warned.

Shiro inclined his head. “Of course.”

Keith wanted more than anything to screw the mission, to take Lance back to the ship and keep him safe, tell him how much Keith cared for him, how amazing he was, how strong. But Allura was motioning the rest of them to follow the envoy, and Lance was stubbornly not looking at anyone. As they moved out, Keith threw a last glance over his shoulder, only to see Lance’s red face breaking down into an expression of utter devastation as he and Shiro turned away.

 

 

“C’mon,” muttered Shiro, and turned back to their lions. Lance followed, his rage quickly melting into cold, resigned acceptance. What the envoy said was true: he and Shiro were both tainted by the Galra, taken and twisted. The Galra had weaponized them, swapping out obsolete parts for more lethal upgrades. It was no wonder the Tona’ch didn’t want them in their sanctuary: hell, it was amazing that Allura and the lions still accepted them. That Keith still accepted Lance, still wanted to be with him, even with his stupid eye and his ugly scars. Mental _and_ physical.

“Hey.” Shiro’s voice interrupted Lance’s thoughts, and he raised his head to meet Shiro’s level gaze. “It’s okay, Lance,” he said, putting his metal hand on Lance’s shoulder and squeezing reassuringly. “They’re just scared, that’s all. They don’t understand what we’ve gone through.”

It made Lance feel a little bit better, actually, and he managed to muster up a small smile for Shiro. More of a grimace, really, but hey, the thought was there. 

At least he had Shiro. Shiro understood. And even if Keith didn’t understand, he was still there for Lance, in the night when his dreams took over, in the days when sometimes his hands shook too much to hold his bayard. Keith was there, _always,_ when Lance needed him. On the Galra ship, back in that hallway where Lance had almost, _almost_ killed Shiro, in the medbay...Keith was always there.

They reached the lions, and Lance boarded Blue. He felt her questioning response to his obvious distress, but brushed it off. _I’m fine._

“Ready?” came Shiro’s voice over the comms. “As always,” Lance fired back, and the black and blue lions shot away in a cloud of rusty red dust.

 

 

“My Lord?” Haggar questioned, ceasing the flow of quintessence radiating from her hands to the figure of Zarkon, kneeling on the platform far below. Her witches followed suit, as Zarkon’s suit sparked and sizzled with purple energy.

“I have a location,” he growled. “Far on the fringes of the galaxy.” 

“Too far for us to reach in time?” 

“Yes. However, we are in luck. A Galra ship captained by my most trusted lieutenant is currently only two star systems away.” Zarkon rose to his feet and turned the full force of his gaze onto Haggar. “Send word to Prince Lotor. He is to capture the black lion, at any cost.”


	3. 3.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, everybody who's still reading! I had a crazy time of things lately. But I'm back on track, and hoping to get this done before season 3 drops and all my characterizations go out the window.

Blue could tell he was upset. She always could. Their bond had only grown stronger after his... _extended stay_ with the Galra. Those days after seemed faded-out and grainy, like old photographs, when Lance would wake up from restless sleep not fully believing that the rescue had been real, that he’d been cleansed of the serum, that Keith wanted to be with him. Overwhelmed, with the echoes of the voice hissing in his head, he’d escape down to Blue’s hangar bay and just let her immense, powerful presence wash over him, drowning out everything else, until someone (Keith) came to find him.

She gently reassured him now, sending an ocean-deep feeling of acceptance and pride through him. Lance sighed and rubbed at his wrists, feeling the ropy scarring even through the thick material of the flight suit.

“It’s okay,” he said, trying to convince himself as well as Blue. “Like Shiro said. They don’t understand what happened.” _No one does._

That wasn’t quite true. Shiro understood, and was always willing to talk to Lance, always there for him to unload the horrors of what had happened to them both. But it took a toll on Shiro, too, having to relive his year-long imprisonment. There was so much Shiro still didn’t remember, and Lance would be damned if _he_ was going to be the one to drag out those deeply-buried memories, to bring that helpless, shell-shocked look back to Shiro’s face. No, Shiro had been through enough. 

His commander’s steady voice broke through the maelstrom of Lance’s thoughts. “So I thought it’d be best if we headed out someplace where we could easily return, or the castle could come assist us, if it does turn out that we’re the ones they’re tracking.”

“Sounds good, chief,” Lance responded. “How about that asteroid belt, about twenty kliks from here? I noticed it on the starmap on our way in. Zarkon’s fleet isn’t really maneuverable, especially his flagship, and we could just zip around in the field and lose ‘em. Blue’s data says the asteroids contain a mineral that jams signals slightly, too.”

“Good plan, Lance!” Shiro said warmly, and Lance felt a glow of pride. “We’ll head there.”

The black lion shot off ahead, and Lance followed with Blue. While the lions were incredibly agile, it was still challenging to maneuver in the asteroid belt. Blue was up to the task, leaping and twisting over smaller rocks and pushing off the bigger ones. Black flew smoothly, almost sinuously, matching Blue’s exuberant pace. Once they were to the center of the field, with good sight lines on an escape route, both lions paused, hanging in midair.

“Now we wait.” Shiro’s voice was calm, but with an undercurrent of anticipation. Lance fidgeted. Now they’d know, if he or Shiro were the weak links, if they really were...tainted.

Tainted _more_ , he should say.

He idly switched on his optic. He’d been learning to control it, to turn the display on and off at will, instead of it just kicking in during battles, or when he felt stressed, or, one memorable time, when he and Keith had been getting a little hot and heavy and it switched on and started triangulating the force he’d need to snap Keith’s neck.

The night had not gone well. Ah, memories.

But luckily Keith had just...moved past it. And he still wanted to be with Lance, for some reason. Even through the trauma and the loss of his eye and the scars, Lance had never remembered feeling so happy, so content. Keith filled gaps within him that he hadn’t known were there, accepted him as he was now, after everything. Unlike those aliens, he thought bitterly. When they got back to the castle, Lance was going to give Keith the longest, most embarrassingly sincere kiss he’d _ever_ had, and then Keith would kiss him back, and run his hands up under Lance’s shirt, and then-

“Lance! They’re here!” Shiro’s voice cut though Lance’s daydream and he jumped in the command chair, trying to get his head back in the game and off of what Fantasy Keith was doing with his hands.

The purple starship hovered just outside the asteroid field. It was unmistakably Galra, and a high-ranking Galra ship as well, but something was off.

“That...doesn’t look like Zarkon’s ship.” said Lance slowly. Shiro made a hum of agreement.

“Stick to the plan. We know now that it’s one of us that’s drawing them in.” Lance’s stomach dropped - he hadn’t taken the ship’s appearance to its logical end. One or both of them were compromised. Shiro went on, “So we’ll escape back to the castle, and then from there, take a shuttle...somewhere.” Lance sat in Blue’s command chair, stunned. They’d have to leave. He’d have to leave the team, leave Blue. Leave Keith.  
“Lance?”

“Yeah, Shiro, I copy,” Lance replied, mind still swirling with shock. And an undercurrent of pure, hot rage for the ship in front of them, for Vint and the Druids, for the entire Galra species. “Let’s get rid of this guy, Blue, let’s go.” As he and Blue zoomed off, his mind was already racing, creating a contingency plan for after he and Shiro left Voltron - hunt down Galra, and kill them all. Like those cowboy stories he’d heard growing up - lone rangers with a vendetta, killing the bad guys but never belonging anywhere. 

It was all he deserved, after all. Voltron would persevere, without Lance and Shiro. They had to.

Lance caught a flash of purple - Galra ship had followed them into the field, and was pacing them easily, dodging asteroids with smooth movements.  
“That definitely isn’t Zarkon!” yelled Lance over the comms. 

“No, it’s not,” Shiro said tensely. “This ship is faster, and more agile, almost like...the lions.”

Shiro was right. The chase was evenly matched between the lions and the enemy ship. Without the use of their scanners, it was harder to see where the ship was, but every time Lance looked back, there it was. Even with the lions pushed to their limits, the purple ship doggedly stuck to their tail, matching them turn for turn. The pilot had incredible skills, maybe even better than Keith’s, Lance thought traitorously. Blue made a sharp dive around an asteroid, skimming the surface, as Lance made a split-second decision. Running wasn’t working. They’d have to take the fight to the enemy directly.

Blue pushed off an asteroid with her powerful back legs, and twisted in mid-jump. At the same moment, Lance jammed his bayard into the console and _twisted_. The sonic rifle materialized and Lance squeezed off a shot, yelling wordlessly. The shot connected, sending the enemy ship careening out of control. “Yes!” crowed Lance, pumping his fist.

“Great shot! Let’s get out of here,” Shiro ordered, and the lions turned in tandem, making for the edge of the asteroid field. “Wait...where’d the Galra ship go?”

The ship had careened off course, but had disappeared from its proposed trajectory entirely. “I can’t see it anywhere,” said Lance tensely. “It’s like it vanished.”

“Galra ships don’t usually have stealth tech,” mused Shiro. “Keep a lookout. We have to be on alert-”

There was a sound, like a great tearing noise, like the universe was ripping apart, and suddenly the enemy ship appeared right in front of them, sailing out from a great jagged hole in space. “WAS THAT A WORMHOLE?” Lance screeched, frantically trying to avoid the shots firing off from the Galra ship. To his left flank, the Black lion was doing the same, with worse luck than Lance. The enemy ship was concentrating fire on the Black lion, and Shiro was taking hits, frantically trying to dodge the barrage of laser fire.

Activating his eye, Lance fired his rifle again, watching the blue sonic beam rush towards the Galra ship and hit the target. The ship took the hit and continued firing without even a break in the rhythm. “Shit! It was a trick, Shiro, get out of there!” Lance yelled, and willed his jawblade to appear. Blue rushed straight-on at the enemy ship, but just before impact, a shot connected to the underside of Black’s neck, and the lion was careening out of control, straight toward an asteroid.

“Lance--I’ve _skkrrrt_ -ost control, need evac- _krssttk_ ”

With a burst of speed to Blue, Lance dove past the Galra ship, towards the Black lion’s wildly spinning form. There was no time for subtlety; Blue’s head rammed the Black lion’s midsection, pushing the ship out of the trajectory of a passing asteroid. In the scant cover of the asteroid, Lance frantically looked for options. 

He found it in the form of a gigantic, cave-riddled asteroid, fast approaching the two lions. “Hang on, Shiro,” he muttered, “we’re gonna get out of this.” Blue pushed the other lion towards the caves, ungently shoving the unmoving bulk of the Black lion into the mouth of a cave. Lance winced at the screeching of metal, but soon they were inside.

Lance bolted out of Blue’s mouth over to the heap that was the Black lion. He stood in front of Black’s mouth, debating on how to force his way inside, when the mouth opened of its own accord. Lance rushed inside, and fell to his knees next to Shiro, slumped unmoving on the floor in front of the console chair.

“Shiro? Shiro!” Lance hissed, turning Shiro gently onto his back. His face was pale under his helmet, and a dribble of blood leaked from his mouth. “Oh _shit_ , Shiro,” Lance muttered, his Galra-enhanced gaze moving down over his captain’s body. A puddle of blood had formed under his chest, leaking out from between the plates of his armor. Lance’s eye scanned the wound and listed the results - rib fracture that had pierced the skin. Odds of survival - 35%.

“Not good, not good-”

A booming voice echoed throughout the caves, buzzing deep in Lance’s chest, drilling its way into his bones. Smooth, and deep, but oozing arrogance from every syllable. “I am Lotor, Prince of the Galra Empire,” the voice announced. “Paladins of Voltron. Surrender yourselves now, and I may be merciful. If I am forced to hunt you down, I may be less...patient. Your choice.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, late again. Didn't manage to get this done before season 3, so I guess characterization is gonna be all over the place. I'll probably still finish this out, if anyone's still reading/interested...enjoy!

In the deafening silence after the voice had spoken, Shiro stirred feebly, on the floor of the Black Lion's cockpit. The wound in his torso steadily pumped blood, into the growing puddle Lance was kneeling in, staining his white armor plates a deep red. 

"Uhh...what’s...goin’ on?" he mumbled, looking at Lance and attempting to focus. The Galra eye took this opportunity to analyze Shiro's pupils. _Severe concussion. Loss of consciousness imminent. ___

__"Thanks eyeball, I could have figured that," Lance muttered darkly, as Shiro's eyelids shut and his body slumped into unconsciousness. "Shit. Now what do we do?"_ _

__First things first: Shiro's wound needed attention, or he'd bleed out even before they managed to escape from this Lotor creep. Slipping a little on the blood, Lance scrambled across to the box of basic first aid supplies kept in the cockpits of all the lions, his mind racing, trying to form some sort of plan._ _

___They’re after Shiro, probably,_ Lance thought, _he’s got the black lion, I doubt they really care about Blue..._ He glanced around the black lion's cockpit. Other than a few fizzing wires and dents in the hull, the lion seemed like she'd fly. She'd have to._ _

__A haphazard plan formed in Lance's mind as he patched up Shiro's wound with some weird, glowing Altean goo. “Okay buddy, I’ll be right back. Don’t move,” he instructed, patting Shiro’s unresponsive shoulder as the goo-glue glowed and hardened on his wound. Lance rushed back to Blue and sank deep into their mental link._ _

__Blue's presence washed over him, like a rushing wave, making Lance smile even though his heart was pounding. He pressed the mental image of the plan to Blue, pressing harder when she resisted, growling. _Trust me. It’s the only way_ , he thought, and felt her grudgingly accept._ _

__Now the hard part. With more straining and grunting than he'd ever admit, Lance dragged Shiro by his collar into the blue lion’s cockpit. Tapping in coordinates into the viewscreen, Lance sent a quick pulse of goodbye to Blue, and felt her bittersweet pulse of feeling back._ _

__No time to waste. Feeling, rather than seeing, Blue crouch down in anticipation, Lance rushed into Black and buckled into the pilot's chair. "Okay, I know we don't know each other all that well, and ordinarily I'd take a girl out first, but it's kind of an emergency, so..."_ _

__A heavy, stern presence pushed into his mind, so different from Blue's open friendliness. Lance felt like a bug under a microscope, every detail minutely examined. _Is this what Shiro dealt with?_ Lance thought, and shivered. Black's thoughts held the power and great responsibility of the leader of Voltron. She scoured his mind, poring carefully over the content. Lance held his breath. Eventually, with great dignity, she seemed to grant him permission. The control panel lit up with a warm violet light, and Lance grinned._ _

___Alright. Let's see what you can do._ _ _

__Lance pressed the accelerator, sending Black skimming out the cave, through the tunnel, and right over the surface of the Galra ship. They shot off into the asteroid field, Lance reveling in the sheer power of the black lion. He chanced a glance back - the Galra ship was hot in pursuit, matching the black lion for every swerve, every sharp corner. Deep in the recesses of Lance’s mind, he felt Blue’s presence fading, as she followed instructions and set off to deliver Shiro back to the safety of the castle, and the team._ _

___And Keith,_ thought Lance’s traitorous brain. He shook off the reminder of Keith’s warmth, his smile-- No. It was time to focus. Time to save Shiro, and if he could, maybe his own skin._ _

__The chase went on, but despite Lance employing all his flashiest, most skillful tricks (and some he learned from Keith, and some he learned from the damn eye), the Galra ship never dropped behind. It matched Lance and the black lion, turn for turn, never letting up, never faltering._ _

__The black lion growled in Lance’s mind - time to bring out the big guns. Lance jerked hard on the controls, and the black lion swung around on a dime. The Galra eye zoomed and focused, and Lance squeezed the trigger, sending blasters shooting out at the enemy ship._ _

__The enemy ship that was no longer there. In its place, a ring of light glowed, then quickly faded. “Was that-was that a wormhole?” Lance said incredulously, and then everything happened very fast and bright- a flash of light to his left, the bright beam of lasers, then impact, and blackness._ _

__

__He blinked awake to flashing blue lights and a high-pitched squealing. Squinting, he assessed the situation- first, he was in pain. Lots of pain. Second, the blue lights were the optic cables from his visor, shattered and sputtering with energy. Third, that noise was worse than his little sister’s whining - but then it stopped. His little sister never stopped whining, so this was new. Woozy, his vision fuzzy, Lance struggled onto his elbows, watching as a pair of blurry purple boots moved closer. Then there was a hand tearing off his helmet and gripping his hair, forcing his head to twist up to look up. Right into a handsome purple face framed by white hair, mouth twisting into a self-satisfied grin._ _

__"I am Prince Lotor," came that smooth, assured voice. "And you are not the pilot of the Black Lion."_ _

__Lance gave his winningest grin. “H-Hey, no need to look so disappointed!”_ _

__“I am not disappointed, I assure you,” said Lotor, with a smile. That smile curled around Lance’s spine, and he shivered, still locking eyes (and optic) with Lotor’s cold yellow gaze. _Oh, I’m in deep shit,_ thought Lance, and when Lotor’s fist came flying at his face, he knew he was right._ _

__

__He struggled back out of the blackness, to flashes of the purple corridors, so horribly familiar. Cold metal hands gripping his upper arms, dragging him down the corridors. Lotor's calm, measured steps, cape swirling around his heels as he led the little procession to ..probably nowhere good. They entered a chamber off the hall, and Lance immediately started struggling, fighting his robotic captors weakly. "Get the fuck-- get off me, no--"_ _

__Predictably, agonizingly, it did no good. He was dragged closer to the chair at the center of the room. The exact same chair as before, with Vint, with the druids. Lotor stood behind the chair, watching with a satisfied gleam in his yellow eyes as Lance was roughly shoved in and strapped down._ _

__“Does a torture chamber comes standard with your baseline Galra ship, or was this the upgrade package?” Lance said , but his voice trembled and betrayed him. To his shock, Lotor laughed, a seemingly sincere chuckle ringing in the horrible room._ _

__“You are funny, Blue Paladin,” he said, coming closer and looking Lance over, like Lance was one of those frogs pinned down into wax, back in Bio class at the Garrison. “But my chamber is not for torture-or, I should say, not just for torture,” he amended. “This is an extraction chamber.”_ _

__“I, uh, gotta say, that doesn’t sound much better,” said Lance, looking frantically around. The equipment in the room seemed different than before, but he was no Pidge, no Hunk - he had absolutely no clue what it was for. Extraction, apparently._ _

__

__“It’s not,” said Lotor cheerfully, standing to his full height. “I only wish to be accurate.” The door slid open, and Lotor turned away from Lance. “Ah! Our other guest has arrived!”_ _

__Two droids entered, dragging the limp body of Shiro between them, and roughly dropped him at Lotor’s feet. Lance’s stomach sunk - Black and Blue, both in the hand of the enemy. His (stupid, ridiculous) plan had failed._ _

__Turning back to the chair, Lotor clapped his hands briskly. “Well! Now that we’re all here, I suppose we can get started.”_ _

__Lance was sure he didn’t want to know. More sure than anything, ever. But he had to ask. “Get started on what?”_ _

__“The extraction process. It’s very grueling, I’m told. You seem, shall we say, robust, so I wouldn’t worry too much.” He moved to a control panel and began typing away. Lance strained to follow him with his eyes._ _

__“Extract what?”_ _

__Lotor answered without turning around. “Your quintessence. Voltron paladins have an abundance. But rest assured, you will survive.” He turned to look at Shiro and frowned. “He might not, though.”_ _


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: torture, very slight non-con....read the warnings!
> 
> And thanks for still reading, guys! Things have been crazy for me lately but I am DETERMINED to see this thing done.

 For a moment, everything was frozen. He stared in shock at Lotor, and then it sunk in. Extraction of quintessence.

"Wait. Waitwaitwait, that can't be a real thing? A real thing you guys can do, can it?" Lance babbled, straining at the chair. craning his head to keep Lotor in view as he moved to the control panels behind Lance.   The cuffs dug into the scarring around his wrists, warm red blood staining the sterile metal.

Lotor laughed lightly. "It certainly is something we can do, although rarely. Even your leader hasn't experienced it, yet."

Lance looked at Shiro's unconscious body and sighed, slumping down in the chair. Even if there was a way out of the cuffs, he'd have to drag Shiro's dead weight around. There was no way they'd make it. His gaze bored into Shiro, willing him to wake up and help Lance deal with this shit, but the Black Paladin remained unresponsive. 

Extraction of Quintessence. What would that even do to them? If they managed to survive, Lance thought darkly. Last time, they took his eye. This time, they'd take his quintessence...he wheezed out a hoarse laugh. There wasn't going to be much left of him by the end of this.

Behind the chair, Lotor was snapping commands to the droids. They dragged out another chair from the corner of the chamber and lifted Shiro into it. _We aren't getting out of this one,_ he thought, watching them tie his leader down and strap an inhibitor cuff on his Galra arm. 

Lotor blocked his view of Shiro, pacing between the two chairs. 

"Blue Paladin!" He exclaimed, and looked Lance over, a smirk on his handsome face. “It's nice to meet you in person. I'm such a fan of your work.”

"My work? What are you talking about?"

“You don't remember your starring role in our dear departed Vint's films? Quite the performance."' Lotor’s smile turned vicious. "He sent it around to all the warships, bragging."

Lotor droned on, but Lance heard none of it, just an awful buzzing in his head. The videos. The _videos,_ plural.

There was no air, like someone had opened the airlock, but this time Keith wasn't there to pull Lance back.  Flashes of the other purple room overlaid this one; Lotor was replaced by Vint looming over him. Broken glass memories of whipcracks, the rusty scent of blood, pain and despair so sharp it went down to his bones. _No, no, no..._   Lance shook his head, eyes scrunched shut, and shoved the nightmares back. He gulped for breath, and Lotor tilted his head, considering. Suddenly, swiftly, he leaned in, his face inches from Lance's. Squirming in the chair did absolutely nothing, and Lance didn't - couldn't-  look away.. 

"No snappy comebacks?" Lotor questioned.  
   
"I-I don't like to waste my time," Lance managed. Lotor smiled and tilted his head slightly, looking like a bird of prey with those yellow eyes fixed on Lance.

"I must admit, I was rather jealous," he purred, bringing his hands down on Lance's bloody wrists. "You had such spirit! Vint really bit off more than he could chew with you." 

“Back then you had both eyes..." He traced a claw right below the optic. Lance shivered, frozen to the spot as soon as Lotor made contact, not even daring to breathe. 

"That beautiful blue...but yellow looks good on you. A bit of Galra tech on the both of you. Shows where you belong,” he said, motioning to Shiro. 

A tiny, almost inaudible groan floated over to them from Shiro’s chair. Lance cast around desperately for something, anything to distract Lotor, and settled on what he was best at - insults and distraction.

"Another monologue? Did you all take "Evil Monologuing 101 at Galra State U or something? Cuz they're all starting to blend together. Get some new material, already." said Lance. 

Plain shock crossed Lotor's face, then he burst out laughing. “I may keep you, Blue Paladin. You've no _idea_ how dull the soldiers can get, honestly, and my generals are out, making sure your team is otherwise occupied.”

“They'll come for us,” Lance said confidently. Keith had come for him last time, had saved him over and over until it stuck. Keith would come. He would never let Lance down. Lance let himself think about Keith bursting through the door like an avenging angel, sword in hand and his mullet flowing majestically behind him...

“Hm. As you say.” Lotor's dismissive voice broke into Lance's fantasy of Keith wiping the smirk of the prince's face. With his fist. Lotor moved to the side of Lance’s chair and started tapping commands into it. The familiar clamps extended and locked into place around Lance’s head, and that was the moment Lance really started to panic.

“Hey, hey, man, you don’t have to do this!” he pleaded, straining his eyes to look towards the prince. Sick disgust crawled up his throat for begging a Galra, but he couldn’t stop. “I bet there’s a better way to get Quintessence. You know, clean energy, renewable resources, all that -”

Lotor laughed again. “Certainly, there are better ways. But I’m also conducting a little experiment. My hypothesis is that without your unique quintessence, you will not be able to pilot your lions, and I will have removed the threat of Voltron for the Galra Empire.”

Lance stared in shock for a second, then- ”NO!” he yelled, straining uselessly again at the bonds. “No, you can’t, you can’t!” Losing Blue would mean losing _everything_ : the fight for the survival of the galaxy, the fight for the survival of Earth, his family...unless Shiro and Lance were replaced, with fully functioning people not tainted and twisted by the Galra. In which case, he would lose Keith. He collapsed forward in his bonds, staring ahead blankly. Lotor would take everything from him.

Across from him, Shiro was now fully conscious. “Lance?” he said, voice full of concern. Lance didn’t answer.

“Ah, the Champion wakes!” Lotor exclaimed from the control panel. “And just in time, too.”

“Lance? What’s going on?” Shiro asked. Lance could feel the panic coming in waves from Shiro, although he was trying hard, so hard to repress it. “Lance. Look at me.”

“I can answer that.” Lotor strode in between their chairs and flicked his silver hair over one shoulder. “I’m stepping in where your other handlers left off. Soon you won’t be paladins of Voltron any longer, and when that happens, well...” 

“What? What happens?” said Shiro roughly.

“Well, then you return to your rightful places as property of the Galra Empire.”

Shiro’s face, already pale from blood loss, went white with fear. 

Lance found his voice. “We’d rather die than join your pathetic, evil empire of psychopaths,” he spat, glaring at Lotor with all the venom he could muster. His eye came online, displaying Lotor’s face in the crosshairs. The prince smiled.

“That won’t be necessary. I have no interest in killing you, and now that he’s awake,” he jerked a thumb back at Shiro, “he has a much better chance of survival.”

He returned to the control panel, passing by Lance and whispering, “He's handsome, for a human, but i must say, I prefer blue to black in this instance.”

“I have a boyfriend,” said Lance prissily, “And anyway, I don't go for psycho murderers anyway. Not really my type.”

"For now.” agreed Lotor. “Let’s see...That princess of yours must have expended a great deal of energy to cleanse you of the serum." he mused, tapping rapid commands into the console. "I wonder what happens when that energy is removed? Generally, removal of quintessence leaves the victim' mind susceptible."

 

Lance froze, locking eyes with Shiro. The black paladin shook his head. “It’s ok, Lance. They’ll come for us.”

“If they don’t. If they don’t, Shiro... Take me out. Don’t let it happen again, please.” Lance pleaded. Shiro’s eyes widened, and he shook his head more firmly in denial. “Shiro, _please_.”

“It won’t come to that, Lance.” Shiro said decisively. “It won’t. They’ll come for us, we just have to hold on until they do.”

Lance nodded through the doubt crawling up his throat, but he couldn’t speak. He wanted Keith, wanted the hated purple room and purple chairs and purple sadists to disappear and just leave Keith. Longing rushed through him, so strong he could almost imagine that Keith could feel it.

“Done.” Lotor’s triumphant voice cut through Lance’s thoughts, and he and Shiro shared a look of pure fear. Druids began filing through the door, forming a circle around the chairs. Two set down the familiar quintessence canisters in the center of the ring. Lance's heart was pounding so loudly he could feel it in his fingers, clamped white around the arms of the chair.

“Let’s begin,” came Lotor’s voice. The assembled druids moved as one, lifting their arms towards Shiro and Lance. Black tendrils flowed from their fingertips, snaking menacingly through the air towards Lance, frozen and locked to the chair. They flowed up his forearms toward his neck, leaving an ice-cold trail of numbness behind. Lance squirmed and threw his head back as they snaked up and around his throat, finally sinking in at his temples. 

There was a weird cold feeling, not painful, just strange. Then came a tugging sensation, on his bones, on his mind. The tugging turned into a pulling, a deep wrenching rip down to his bones, to his very core. His eyes rolled back, mouth open in a silent scream, writhing in the bonds that held him down.

It was like his mind was dissolving into bits under the stress of the pull. Lance was cracking open, and they were taking all of him, everything, until he’d just be left a husk, a shell, full of freezing blackness. Frantic, he tried to find something to hold on to, any sort of anchor...

“Keith!” he screamed, aloud and mentally, latching onto the memory of his face, the softness of his smile; trying to hold onto the warmth of him, the fire--

A smooth voice broke through the pain, the cold hungry darkness. Lance struggled to focus. “I think, given time, you'll accept that you are a part of the Galra empire. _My_ empire, one day. So what does that make you, Lance?”

Lance couldn’t answer, couldn’t even see. There was only the ripping, tearing pain, shredding him to pieces.

_“Mine,”_ hissed Lotor, and then the ravenous darkness overtook Lance, and there was nothing.

 

 

He awoke, still bound to the chair. Shiro was across from him, slumped in his bonds but breathing.

Keith hadn't come. 

Lance figured he should feel upset about that, but he just felt nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing a sequel! Season 2 got me thinking, so there's going to be some canon S2 stuff sprinkled in, but adjusted to this narrative.


End file.
